New post, new month, new report. The one UFO that got away was the one that totaled all our North American interceptors.

Our new side objective is to capture enough meld to get Alex some Mimetic Skin. Otherwise, still capturing the Outsider.

We do have enough to buy Archangel armour. I'm going to buy one set and see how we get on.

smoke weed e'ry day

Two more satellites ready for launch, bringing our reserve up to three in total. We'll keep hold of those until we can afford to launch them.

In the mean time, I'm selling off some damaged UFO bits, giving us enough to consider building an Elerium generator. That should provide enough power for the rest of our efforts in their entirety.

Another UFO! This time, it's over South America, so we should be able to send two interceptors after it.

Our first one was shot to bits, but not destroyed. Let's see how number two does.

Victory!

PQ modelling our latest weapon: the Plasma Rifle. Also note that we could send people with the EXALT rifles, but that's pointless.

Garo's scatter laser has stats like these, which aren't too bad.

Offering up the Plasma Rifle, though, it has a lower critical chance, but higher base damage. I think I'm going to keep Garo on the shotty for now.

Notice nobody has the plasma pistol. Laser pistols do reduced damage which shouldn't kill the Outsider.

YOU BETRAYED THE LAW

Remember our goal here is not to kill the Outsider.

One feature I've not mentioned yet is the sound feature. Every so often, a nearby enemy's noise will be directionally heard by a soldier. It doesn't indicate how far away they are, just what direction. This is pretty useful for hunting down lone enemies that escape our attention during missions, especially since most have pretty distinctive cries. This map's pretty big, to be honest, the UFO isn't even in sight yet and this is three moves in. Sounds are useful.

Mutons!

Take the shot, Alex!

Getting Flan to suppress the bastards tends to help with getting others in close. Suppression, amongst its stated description, cancels overwatch of any enemy in that state.

This lets soldiers like Garo get to positions of power over them without fear.

Flan's Holo-targeting also lets soldiers like Kin improve their aim if they don't have a major advantage.

Outsider! Vahlen's insistent on the need to capture it.

Dabir taking down that last sectoid fucker.

It's like I'm explaining a series of family photos :')

I'm willing to let Dabir take a hit to capture this thing.

He gets to hit it back for four damage anyway. The Arc Thrower is more effective the weaker the enemy. It's the Pokéball theorem.

Stunned! We've done it!

Straight back into a cutscene. Enjoy.

#shotsfired

And Garo gets a promotion and becomes our second Colonel! A good run, overall.

Garo's Colonel rank gives him access to two very interesting traits. The first, not shown, is Resilience, which makes him completely immune to critical hits, making him stupidly survivable at cloes range. However, the other is Killer Instinct, as shown above, and I feel that's not a bad shout considering all the fire support he has.

I'm going to award him the Better You Than Me-dal to give him more health whenever he's healed. This means he'll be more capable of getting back in the fight when he is wounded.

We do now have enough to work on the best tier weapons other than the Plasma Rifle. I'm going to invest in researching the Alloy Cannon, the best shotgun there is. It should be a good companion to Garo.

Shit. Time for another covert operation. Sending MMX again, but with a better pistol this time. Hopefully, we'll be able to pin this cell down fast.

Another council request! This time, it's to pawn off our EXALT assault rifles, which we do not need and will never need again. The reward is a tidy sum of money, so obviously, we graciously accept and invest it into a satellite.

Abductions! We can't afford to let the Europeans panic, but both China and Australia are part of the Asian group. If we don't take either of them up on their offer, we're going to have double the panic in Asia, something I'm not sure will be particularly well-taken in Japan, where panic is at three already.

I've settled on Australia because the difficulty is higher than China. I want to get as many kills in as possible, and more aliens is not a bad shout.

I'm giving Alex his Archangel armour for this mission to test it out. Everyone's also getting plasma pistols: I'm tired of dicking around.

Operation Falling Druid takes place in a graveyard with a weird mausoleumy building in the middle.

And we've run into a Cyberdisc and two drones!

Aaaand one of the first things they do is take pot shots at the giant pink robot. Figures. At least they miss.

Just before I talk about the drones, here's a shot of the Cyberdisc in its open form. Scary fucker.

Drones are annoying little robots that fly around with nothing but the piddliest little laser gun the aliens could give them. However, their most dangerous trait is their ability to repair robotic allies. This turns them from annoyances into serious pains in the ass.

Another shot of the Cyberdisc. Look at that tail!

Also note the health of the drones. This puts them juuuust out of reach of pistols, meaning you do have to waste a few rounds of primary weapon ammunition to fuck them up.

Ooooor you could just be Flan and rocket them.

On the other side of the Mausoleum, two Mutons turned up. I got Pure to suppress one of them because he was flanking Garo, but the other took a shot at Pure to try and cancel suppression. Luckily, he missed.

Pure and Alex take one out, and Dabir gets the honour of levelling the other.

"Rest in peace."

Some floaters turned up, so I sent Garo to put one to rest immediately. The others ran off, however; in Classic mode, the AI isn't afraid to retreat troops to other squads or to set up ambushes. However, I think I know a way to circumvent this all entirely.

Alex spreads his wings (jetpack) and takes to the sky!

Each move in the air takes a single unit of fuel. Weirdly, hovering once you've reached altitude is free. This means that for one or two units of fuel, we can put Alex in a position of power, looking down on the battlefield from one high; and there's nothing the enemy can do about it.

Like this hapless Floater.

Pow! And the dirt is gone.

Kin receives a promotion for completing another mission. Hopefully her aim will improve, it's been properly shoddy so far.

I'm giving her Disabling Shot, like Alex. Having two team members with this ability can be an absolute lifesaver, shutting down enemies for longer than they can really afford to be.

In the meantime, Europe is absolutely shitting itself. I intend to wait until after the Covert Operation is over; that tends to decrease panic over the whole continent. If that doesn't work, I can launch satellites, and if that doesn't work, Germany might be on their way out...

"This particular example seems to have the ability to repair damaged equipment. Dr Shen and I believe it should be possible to capture and repurpose these for our own use in the field."

And lo, we have some more Foundry projects.

This is a particularly interesting project that lets Arc Throwers retrain the drones to be on our side.

Within a couple of days, we can also produce plasma cannons for our aircraft. This should be plenty enough to take down anything in the sky.

Okay, shit's serious now. We need to win this mission hard, otherwise Germany will have no chance to decrease its panic levels.

Buying Garo an Alloy Cannon for this mission. The brilliant thing about the Alloy Cannon is that its accuracy is actually still amazing. It's comparable to the basic assault rifle... but it's a shotgun.

The team we're using to bring MMX back. Let's get to work.

BLOODY FEAR

This mission type's a hard one: it's a defend against constant waves map. There are two areas we have to defend, one inside this building and another beyond, as seen below.

We have to be able to defend these positions from EXALT soldiers and prevent them from being on the capture point for the number of turns stated top right. Being in the cap zone blocks the capture. Seems alright for the moment. We'll need Alex in a decent position to effectively provide covering fire for this: inside a building is difficult terrain.

Here is where MMX's hack skill will be most effective.

Hacking it causes all of EXALT's equipment to disengage and gives us an extra turn to set up... or blow up vans.

When EXALT forces get into the capture area, things start to heat up a little bit. However, they're not too hard to repel.

Dabir's going to break this puny man Adam Jensen style.

"Smashing."

Garo clears the capture point nicely for us.

MMX is ready to render EXALT impotent again.

And he hears enemy soldiers in the distance, presumably crying at their poor performance thus far.

More EXALT troops near the Skyranger. We're about to get attacked from two sides.

MMX is also flanked!

Alex takes care of foes on the far side, now we can move troops backwards.

This is the last wave of enemies: a surprisingly limp performance from EXALT overall, as we have thus far come to expect.

Bloody Squadsight.

The AlexMdle Smackdown.

Look at the distance from Garo to that car. Amazing accuracy.

Reassigning Dabir to the centre to hold it.

Flan misses for what is almost the first bloody time.

Pure, however, won't.

But he still can't finish the job.

Garo's Close Combat Specialism has given him an itchy trigger finger, rendering enemies trying to move past him absolutely flaccid.

I love seeing 100% chances. And that critical chance is juicy.

Kin hits, but doesn't kill an enemy sniper.

Instead, MMX, the sly bastard, steals the kill from under her nose.

There's gonna be some bitchin' in the barracks tonight. EXALT is once again left cleaning the spunk of victory from its face in what is perhaps their worst run to date.

No promotions, but Shen apparently thought we were out fighting aliens. Silly man.

Panic reduced by one in Germany! That's a start. I think France needs a satellite, however.

I've also put one up over Russia, meaning we've covered the whole continent.

I'm going to start the research into the Outsider Shard now. It's not going to spark any must-do missions just yet.

And we award an Order In The Chaos to Alex Mdle for his outstanding work picking out and killing dozens of targets.

And thusly, we finish our research into the Outsider Shard. Incidentally, the coordinates for the alien base are N 39 31' 16.68 W 76 38' 46.82, which actually corresponds to Firaxis Games' studio in Maryland, north of Baltimore. That said, the actual location of the base in-game is nowhere near that.

Completely dedicated to the plot, this project. The skeleton key is never used after this again, and capturing any further Outsider Shards is pointless because we can't sell them.

"... an extension of the shard and its function. Dr Shen believes with sufficient time, he may be able to develop a device or "key" that mimics the shard itself, giving us a means to locate the signal."

A scientific note, resonating within a specific range of the electromagnetic spectrum is... a weird way of saying it's a transmitter. You can resonate, but usually that's associated with travelling waves, not standing waves.

Normally, resonation within ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum involves using specific frequencies and then that's absorbed by something and that's what resonates. Something similar is the basis of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, or NMR, a technique used in chemistry, physics and also in medicine in MRI machines.

Also, a harmonic dampening chamber is effectively a quiet sound room with eggboxes in the walls. Pretty efficiently stops vibrations.

This is the thing we need to build. It does seem like a bit of a stretch to be able to produce something like that, but whatever, it advances the story.

We're also low on pretty much only weapon fragments at this point. We'll need to beat up some more aliens to get stuff so we can research the specialised plasma rifles.

Note now that we always have the Alien Base Assault option available. We can actually choose to do this as long as we have the skeleton key produced, even in favour of abductions, though that's obviously not recommended. You can, however, put this off as long as you'd like.

UFO! And it's a small one. Should be pretty simple to take down.

Enemy down.

Let's get to work.

Falling Disc, surely?

A desert/prairie-like map, this time round.

... oh, god.

Flan takes a laser to the face.

And Dabir steals Kin's kill form under her nose. Wow, poor Kin, losing kills to others is becoming a habit.

Disabling shot time. I'm going to try and lock the disc down with Alex and Kin and focus fire with everyone else.

And Double Tap once again proves to be incredibly useful.

Flan's chances aren't half bad, actually.

Not bad at all.

Neither are Garo's.

Shot.

lolseekers

That should be enough to give Alex Mimetic Skin! Theoretically, we needn't give him both Archangel Armour and camoflage, so he'll have an additional two health in later missions.

A seeker pops up right next to Dabir, giving us an excellent view of what Meld actually looks like. Pretty.

Alex takes down an Outsider just as it appears.

And Dabir saves Alex from being flanked by a totally useless Seeker.

And Flan is now a Colonel! Also look at that kill count. Alex OP.

Flan now gets to choose between Rocketeer, which gives her two rockets to fire, or Mayhem, which improves her damage based on weapon tech level. It doesn't actually matter at this point because we're still going to make her a mecha, so I'll go with Rocketeer for the moment.

We still don't have enough weapon fragments, so we'll have to keep fighting on that front. We can, however, give Alex Mimetic Skin and make him the Wiederganger he deserves to be.

And our Elerium Generator is now online! This should provide enough power to run the rest of the base on its own. This means we can build a Satellite Nexus now.

Okay, so, here's the deal. We have five days until the Covert Operation happens and 21 days until the Satellite Nexus is online so we can reduce panic in other areas. We may need to start running Intelligence Scans. These are actions that root out EXALT cells before they activate each month.

The Germans have offered a sum of money for the Arc Throwers we do have. It's at a massive profit, too.

Terror Mission! This will be interesting. Hopefully it'll ease the panic in the region.

Team up! (naaaa naaaa, naaaa na naaa~)

There are too many jokes that could be made with that name. I'll leave it to you.

This is a lovely map for Alex. Two broken bridge sections on some sort of weird overpass. Looks like the Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham, UK.

Going to be putting Alex in the air for this one.

CHRYSSALIDS

Oh man, I kinda want Garo to miss this shot.

I suppose I should be thankful.

Pure hits, but again, doesn't kill an enemy. Sigh.

A poor civilian bites the dust.

Alex is in a pretty good position up there, actually. Nice views, away from danger. I'll keep him there.

Kin kills a Chryssalid, yay.

ZOMBIES D:

MORE CHRYSSALIDS D:

Fuck me, Zombies are tough bastards.

Dabir about to punch a Chryssalid off the edge of the world. (the corpse does actually break through the wall, didn't get a screencap)

"Bugger off."

Oh man. Pure's activated two more Chryssalid groups of three and a pair of Cyberdiscs and Drones. He's in trouble.

... everyone is.

Seven dead Civilians so far. We're starting to look like we're in big trouble. If Zombies aren't killed within three turns, they turn into Chryssalids.

Okay, stepwise. Cyberdisc weapon disabled by Kin.

One Zombie killed by Garo and his close combat specialism should flatten the other.

Pure kills one Chryssalid in the centre. It's already killed a civvy, so we'll have to pray.

Flan has to kill the shit out of the Chryssalid nearest to her, but doesn't.

Dabir up to tank more damage if and when it comes.

He squashes Flan's bug while he's at it.

Alex topped another Chryssalid but he's out of ammo.

Kin hits the cyberdisc for respectable but disappointing 6 damage. I was hoping for a critical hit.

Flan suppresses the far cyberdisc.

"Rest in pieces."

A zombie falls prey to Garo's CQS ability.

The cyberdisc uses an ability called Death Blossom. Area of effect. Shit.

Garo lowers the Cyberdisc to our level for Dabir to finish off.

"Disc ejected."

Flan launches a rocket to damage three.

Pure kills a zombie and clears out as soon as he can. The above image has been censored for your safety and peace of mind.

Alex clears out a zombie and the drone flanking Flan, a grim determination with him.

The last Chryssalid comes out to play and brings a friend.

I put Garo round the corner a couple of steps away from the edge to force the cyberdisc to move and reloaded him. This should be enugh for CQS to work on anything coming his way.

Kin lowers the zombie to manageable levels of health.

Dabir punches the other disc for 12. (Also note Flan's glitched her way inside the tank.)

Alex whittles away at the Chryssalid.

Pure floors the zombie.

The Chryssalid promptly kills a civvy.

Flan finishes off the cyberdisc with a 'nade; about the only thing she can do from there.

Alex repositions and reloads.

Garo takes down the last Chryssalid from a position out of cover. I hope that any zombies will head for him and activate CQS as well as various forms of overwatch.

However, the mission decides I've had enough and doesn't spawn a zombie.

Pure chooses between Saviour, which restores four more health per medkit use, and Sentinel as above. I'm giving him that. Look at his aim and will! Hidden Potential's paid dividends for him.

Dabir gets to choose between two very attractive prospects: Absorption Fields that ensure damage done to him has a maximum limit of a third of his health or Reactive Targeting Sensors as above. I feel an extra shot is highly useful in situations we come across.

Anyway, despite the ordeal, South Africa is happy with our efforts. Thank God.

We need plasma sniper rifles and heavy plasma guns faster. Unfortunately the terror mission yielded basically no weapon fragments, so we have to keep waiting.

The gods are smiling on us; we have some abductions.

Unfortunately, this has got to be a Russian mission. The other countries are going to have to wait because the entire continent of Europe will panic if I don't give it attention. We're hitting the stage where it's difficult to keep the world from panicking. This is where the strategic level gets to its diciest.

The team we're taking. I've left Kin home for this one, I want to try and get used to having one sniper out.

... that name is amazing.

You'll recognise this map as the one where we lost Amanda Powell.

Alex's Mimetic Skin comes into play here. He is now totally invisible.

This means he's a fantastic reconnaissance unit.

Stack up, team.

The invisible man can kill one of both of the floaters literally without trouble.

And my dear lord, how.

Notice that Alex is now revealed. This means he essentially gets one free shot whenever he spots an enemy.

SK takes care of the second. Time to move on.

Sounds. Stay frosty, guys.

That side of the room is clear...

... as is that. Huh. Reload and overwatch it up.

They're on the move.

We've moved up a room. Time to ready up.

In preparation, I've moved Alex to a better position and intend to use him to scout out the enemy. Mimetic skin is pretty much undetectable as long as his starting position isn't visible.

Everyone else plays it safe.

A pair of completely unsuspecting Thin Men! They get to live for the moment, but Alex is staring them down.

Trying to move him spooks them, and they've hit the roof and are now active, but Alex has managed a second move, concealing himself, spotting a pair of Mutons in the process.

I'm... hearing some ominous sounds. I hope it's not what I think it is.

Oh man. It was. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the Mechtoid. Shit is officially serious. Alex is now locked in his position; he can't move without revealing his position and activating that squad of aliens, and we're not ready for that yet.

I've opened the doors from cold storage. It's time to move out. Pure's on his own on the right flank, but he's a support, he can run forever. I hope to get the two heavies to the left to help take down the Mechtoid and Dabir and Garo through the centre to take down the main bulk of the enemies.

Until then, Alex is hunkering down. No use putting him in any danger.

An irritating Thin Man poked Dabir and now he's angry. He's on top of the lorry in the centre and ready to bring the wrath of God onto that alien.

And does.

A blasted Thin Man spots SK through the gap between lorry and load.

The Sectoid and Mechtoid stay put for the moment.

Change of plans. I'm going to send SK and Dabir over to help Alex. Flan and Pure will drive the centre and Garo takes a flanking route.

Fuck. Moving SK activates the Mutons.

... oh, alright.

Very alright.

"Now it's Muton the ground."

Thin Man fails.

BREAKING NEWS: ALIEN EATS SHIT

what

they just

but

what

teleported

no warning

what

what

The Mechtoid up close. It's... I don't know what's just happened. This defies all logic. It must be a programming bug. I've dashed Alex back but SK is still over on the other side and is now useless for the remainder of mission.

Not quite 100%. I'm not satisfied. I'm going to get a heavy to suppress them before I try again.

The bonus of this is that it also locks that Mechtoid down; a lowered aim and a shot against it if it moves.

Alex can reveal to us where the alien is, but it's cost us his move because he dashed there. Time for Dabir to help out, I think.

Problem solved.

Pure also lays down suppressing fire against the Mectoid. Juuuust in case.

Garo is now totally in control of the situation.

Fucked up, mate.

"What the fuck was all that noise?"

Something of a pity promotion, I feel.

Giving him Grenadier to make him a more useful character; I'll give him Mayhem to improve how powerful those grenades are.

Wellp. Panic across Asia and Africa. Let's see how the Covert Operation goes next time, hopefully it'll start solving problems.

Right. Onwards we go. We'll be encountering Mechtoids a lot more from now on. Whenever there are sectoids, there is a pretty high chance of there being a Mechtoid.

Time for the Covert Operation to rescue MMX.

That's a bloody status effect.

00:19 - PureQuestion: nonono00:19 - PureQuestion: frozen daze is a mispelled alternate name for the Ice Age

It's another hacking mission, this time near some shops.

Noise! And from the alleyway, too.

Putting Dabir on the roof so he can drop down from the sky to fuck people up shortly.

Oh man. They're all here... and not even trying to stay in cover.

So let's get Dabir to soften them all up a little.

Pow. It hasn't killed any, but it's definitely helped.

"The fuck did that come from?"

One's disappeared to God knows where, but another is pretty much handing himself to us on a platter.

MMX opening his door on the other side of the alley, however, has activated another squad of EXALT forces... including a medic. He's the priority target.

Moving Garo out, we have a lot of options. I'm going to get MMX to hack the tower and put their weapons offline first, I think.

SK is ready to kill off this sucker.

Despite being flanked, MMX killed two operatives outright. A very good round for him.

Flan threw a well-placed grenade to damage on soldier and destroy some cover.

Putting Garo there with Run and Gun is a two-fold decision. Firstly, it blocks off the ladder, which means that neither can get up there to exploit the height advantage. Secondly, it improves his aim against the soldier that previously could not be flanked. Note that they will have to reload, so we have a turn of safety.

That soldier is fucked.

He, however, isn't: Pure's track record of not quite killing continues.

Two EXALT troopers have dropped onto the roofs of buildings, but they're both in prime lines of sight for Alex.

Alex can hit this guy, but can't guarantee a kill. I'm sure MMX will oblige him once he's hacked the transmitter, though.

Our objective now is to extract. We'll get to that soon.

First, MMX has some cooking up to do.

Toasted.

Now to exfiltrate. I'm sending Pure and Garo round the other side because they're too far away to link up with the rest of the squad.

In the meantime, I'm sending SK and Flan through the laundromat in the centre.

It seems that was a good call. EXALT have put two operatives in behind us to try and stop our retreat.

But SK is having no more of this shit.

Absolutely none.

Aha. Ahahaha. Ahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahaaaaaahahaha.

"New gate status: installed."

And the rest, as they say, is history. EXALT once again tastes the warm salty splash of defeat.

MMX gets a promotion to Major for his work undercover. He'll receive Extra Conditioning as Garo did by default.

One thing I forgot to do before we started was autopsy the Mechtoid, so we'll do it now.

"... potential disadvantage by implementing a new technology. A small module located within the armor's core appears to serve as a sort of "amplifier" for these telepathic abilities. When targeted by an allied unit, rather than linking the two, the amplifier seems to takes this power and use it to form a sort of shield around the suit. Our troops should be wary of this capability, as the suit is already quite formidable without the additional shielding in place."

This has given us access to two improvements for the MEC troopers, one for mobility and another for health. We should be able to start projects that do not cost weapon fragments as we're saving those for sniper rifles, which is both of them, so they'll both enter production, as well as Stealth Satellites, a fall-back option in case our efforts to stop UFOs fail. I've also sold enough redundant material to set up a Workshop or three to build over the next couple of weeks, as well as a laboratory. They'll all finish construction before the Satellite Nexus, which is somewhat irritating.

I've made the decision that I'm going to try and promote everybody to a minimum rank of Sergeant in order to get their nicknames. It'll be hard, but hopefully with the additional weapons available, the process will be less painful than it used to be.

Some more advances.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

I'm sending Dr Thunderous on this one to try and get him some experience.

Another project completed, just in time for the report.

Not a bad look for the world.

I should just add that every month, countries with satellites have a chance of lowering their panic by one bar.

Workshops!

And our first extra laboratory is online. Labs increase the research staff and speed up research.

Flan and Dabir will not be joining us today. Instead, Firefox and Aqua will be on mission to get themselves some experience.

Fog of war, however, stays in mission.

Another hacking mission, we're in an old railway yard. Non-linear, but with massive corridors, it'll be interesting to see how we get on.

We've found some EXALT forces. They've been more extensively modified than previous encounters, and they also have laser weaponry instead of their conventional weapons, meaning we've moved into the second phase of EXALT's operations.

Their laser weapons. They really do look better than our own designs. In previous runs, I've replaced any laser weapons we use with theirs. They have exactly the same stats as ours.

A gorgeous shot from Alex, there, dropping the EXALT heavy to one health bar. Easy picknigs for our recruits.

Pure pops a smoke grenade.

Close, but no cigar.

Another EXALT squad!

DrT gets a shot at an operative.

SK suppresses an enemy Sniper.

FF's grenade makes its mark.

Aaaand another EXALT soldier eats shit.

SK's suppression exposes a sniper.

And FF gets a second kill!

SK takes a hit from an EXALT sniper in overwatch from beyond our sight range.

Alex takes to the sky and kills that pesky sniper.

Pure heals SK's wound, quipping gloriously. "Quit your bitchin'."

More "reinforcements".

More, but these seem to have survived the first salvo. Not for long.

Aqua has a confirmed kill.

And Dr T does, too. All our Squaddies have at least one EXALT kill.

More EXALT! Dead on Overwatch, however. Another failure.

SK finishes on the last EXALT soldier's face.

Three and four kills for Aqua and FF respectively. Not bad at all.

In addition, DrT got a lovely two kills with just a pistol.

Note how many countries we have ticked off. EXALT's base has been narrowed down to Asia or Africa, so it shouldn't be long until we work out where it is for good.

We're finally in a position to be able to research the plasma sniper rifle. This is the ultimate long range weapon. Coupled with the Alloy Cannons, our squads should soon be an even more formidable force.

A remarkably short word from Dr Vahlen, and the rifle is ready for production.

We are well stocked with all of the necessary resources, so we'll get one for each sniper on the staff.

I'm also buying a Skeleton Key, just so we don't need to dick around with it when we do come to need it.

A few Plasma cannons wouldn't go amiss, either: I'm buying five for our interceptors, one for each continent.

And our Nexus is finally operational, meaning we can launch satellites, satellites and more satellites.

I've totally covered Africa and China is calmer than it was. Note the limit in the top right. We have exactly enough satellite space for the rest of the world. Clever, eh?

A landing! This should be interesting.

I'm taking Ebo on this mission in order to get him a little more experience. Note Alex modelling the plasma sniper rifle. MMX has his big gun, too, so we're totally ready.

Fuck, that's an amazing mission name.

Another out in the wilderness map for us. I suspect this is a pretty big ship, but let's run it.

Noise indicates direction.

Shit, Mutons three.

Yep, a pretty big ship.

Double Suppression power!

Flan drops the Muton down in strength.

And Ebo finishes it off.

Alex spots a mechtoid squad: something to think about.

And they move into the main area, ready to fight, with Alex pinned in position. This could get interesting.

MMX is lucky, and the Mechtoid is about to get it hard.

Incredible. All that's left to shoot are two snipers.

Ebo takes that fucker down.

And the other is handled well by our resident master sniper.

Muton noises from the ship. I'll wait until people have stacked up.

A pair of seekers! That'll be pleasant.

Even closer still! It's a pity we don't have anybody with Bioelectric skin. That would have been very useful indeed to prevent them from cloaking.

Alex caps one, alarming the other.

And MMX reveals a new set of enemies! This is the Muton Berserker, a melee variant of the Muton. It's highly dangerous in battle, so the Assaults had better have their A-game with them.

Ebo takes down the other Seeker like nobody's business: I think we have a promising Sniper in the making.

Alex reveals to us the nature of the Mutons' positions. This should make it much easier to combat them. Garo will be an excellent guardsman against the two trying to get up the stairs, and MMX can take down the berserker.

In a stunning show of the AI being a crapshoot, the Berserker's right next to Alex. Let's see if we can't coax it out.

Garo jumping down to a position just outside one move's worth of tiles for the Berserker is enough for it to concentrate on him. However, looking at the chances he has, Garo won't be able to kill this thing in one go. We're going to have to play smart.

Using Run and Gun gives us an additional chance of making a critical attack. It's Garo's Colonel perk.

It's worked in our favour, too.

Alex is also about to land a critical hit. The weapon itself has a massive addition to the chance column: 35%. On its own! Everything else is pushing it right up to 100%. Because he's firing from cover, he also has a significant shot against the Muton, and though he's flanking it, the Order In The Chaos still counts its full cover as viable, so he gets more percentage that way.

All in all, a kill for the textbooks.

Two Outsiders! As this is a big ship, it's understandable that they'd have two navigators.

Look at those numbers. Mmmmm. Delicious.

Flan throws a grenade to let Ebo take the last kill. No promotions from this mission, but lots of elerium, alloys and weapon fragments

Time to autopsy the big bugger. This actually means we could look into try to capture this bastard, but we'll see about that.

"The men are calling this unit the 'Berserker'."

Essentially, it's a genetic stereotypical Viking.

This gives us a Genetic modification and an item, Combat Stims, which are essentially in-field drugs to make soldiers bolder.